Kodak Ultramax 400 Color Negative Film (ISO 400) 35mm 24-Exposures - 2 Pack (2 Items)

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For this Kodak Ultramax 400 review, I loaded up my Nikon F3 and documented my daily life throughout a couple of days. Since my schedule usually revolves around our Shih Tzu, Sushi, you’ll see a lot of photos of her 🙂 For shots around town, of the family, or everyday life, Kodak Ultramax is hard to beat. Its color rendition is true to life, less punchy and saturated than Fujifilm’s consumer-grade film Superia 400. Blues and yellows and greens are perfectly balanced, while reds are nicely restrained, which is a blessing since many consumer-grade films seem to oversaturate in the reds. This overall color accuracy makes the film perfect for travel, or for shooting landscapes or cityscapes. It sounds shallow to suggest people would like a film more if it had different words on the box, but we all know how much branding matters. Not just for film, but for anything we consider buying. I just wonder how some people might feel differently about Ultramax if it was still – and always had been – Gold 400. It’s cycled through various ones down the years and they’ve likely differed from country to country too, albeit using different combinations of the same words for much of the time. Beauty certainly is in the eyes of the beholder, and from where we’re standing (with hundreds and hundreds of rolls shot over the years), Kodak Ultramax 400 can definitely create some absolutely beautiful images.

Again in the following side-by-side layout, the general yellowing of Ultramax’s colour profile can be seen, especially in the oar of the rowboat. The Portra image also exhibits detail, and a truer-to-life colour reproduction, particular in the red and orange tones. However, it is nonetheless worth noting these images’ remarkable similarities in terms of colour and tone when correctly exposed — with tightly controlled exposure, an analogue photographer could still produce a professionally passable result on a roll of Ultramax. If you can accept that warmness, I think you’ll find the colours to be pretty balanced overall. They are well-saturated, but they’re all well-saturated. There’s no single standout colour like you get with your reds when shooting Fujicolor Industrial, for example.There’s also a new ISO 400 colour negative film made in Germany by ORWO that I’ve recently reviewed: Wolfen NC 500 . Unfortunately, it’s neither cheap nor capable of rendering colours as accurately as UltraMax. It has charm and applications, but you can’t use it the same way as consumer colour films. Additionally, the rolls I got did not have DX coding, rendering NC 500 unusable on most point-and-shoot cameras .

Once again, if you’re comparing a photo taken on Portra or Ektar, you might find a little more issue with the humble Ultramax shots; a lot of times, though, you’d be surprised how minor the differences are. However, when using it for street photography, it definitely gives you a bit more versatility – that word again – when it comes to the light you can shoot in. All of this, means versatility. No matter what your subject, no matter what camera you’re using, and no matter the light, Kodak Ultramax 400 should fit your application. During the past year I’ve used it at night and by a blisteringly sunlit pool; on a foggy sail across Vineyard Sound and at a kid’s indoor birthday party. I’ve shot dogs in full gallop, and horses refusing to do so. I’ve successfully zipped it through the autofocus speed machine that is Nikon’s F4, and painstakingly ratcheted it across the film gate of an old-as-dirt Contax.

Capture amazing outdoor photos with vivid colour contrast, accurate colour reproduction and sharp images Generally, the colors produced by Ultramax are perfectly suited to most subjects and lighting situations. Skin tones usually look quite accurate (this is where you usually want to shoot at box speed), and landscapes can also look great.

In this side-by-side lineup, the Ultramax image is a bit overexposed and that has caused it to become flatter and less saturated than the Portra image. Nonetheless, even in this state of overexposure, the warmer, yellow tones come through strongly in the Ultramax shot. This is especially noticeable in the clouds, which are skewing warm instead of being true white. In the Portra image, the colour reproduction seems to be more accurate, and the detail comes through sharply thanks to its correct exposure.Due to its lower price, Ultramax 400 is also favoured by those who are newer to analogue photography and therefore more prone to making mistakes. It also has a wide exposure latitude, meaning it can be pushed (i.e. overexposed) by a stop; this tends to produce a lovely glow effect in the images.